


Violet

by ghoulaesthetics (astraielle)



Series: Cat Ryder vs. The Universe [4]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: As One Does, F/M, Fluff, Mild Hurt/Comfort, jaal snores too loud and cat contemplates smothering him, then they contemplate death together for a bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2019-01-01 03:36:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12147795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astraielle/pseuds/ghoulaesthetics
Summary: Ryder has insomnia.It’s not too bad, and she expected as much considering it’s something that’s always plagued her since her Alliance days back in the Milky Way. But that doesn’t make it less annoying.Jaal does not have insomnia, or whatever the Angaran equivalent of the ailment would be called, and she’s kind of impressed and jealous of his ability to pass out on any surface that’s mildly horizontal and not completely covered by hornets. On the plus side, Cat figured, it meant she got to spend time at night doing whatever she didn’t get to do during the day, work-wise. She hated working on mission reports during the day, but there was something almost peaceful about doing them in bed. Almost.





	Violet

Ryder has insomnia. 

It’s not too bad, and she expected as much considering it’s something that’s always plagued her since her Alliance days back in the Milky Way. But that doesn’t make it less annoying. 

Jaal does not have insomnia, or whatever the Angaran equivalent of the ailment would be called, and she’s kind of impressed and jealous of his ability to pass out on any surface that’s mildly horizontal and not completely covered by hornets. On the plus side, Cat figured, it meant she got to spend time at night doing whatever she didn’t get to do during the day, work-wise. She hated working on mission reports during the day, but there was something almost peaceful about doing them in bed. Almost.

The digital display on her desk flashed 3:39 AM. She’d been up for nearly twenty-four hours now, and her eyes had been burning for the past four of them.  _Maybe it’s time to turn the screen off_ , she thought as she hit ‘save’ mid-sentence. It wasn’t like she was moving at a quick pace anyway, and besides, Cora had a habit of swooping in behind her to make quick ‘edits’ to her work before they got sent back off to the Nexus. Personally, she found her notes in the margins to be utter comedy gold (especially anything she came up with regarding Tann) but her second in command did not share that opinion. 

With a frustrated huff, she tossed the datapad onto the bedside table and fell back onto the bed. She wasn’t worried about waking Jaal with her movements or noises. Her boyfriend slept like the dead. At least, in terms of actual wakefulness. The dead didn’t snore  _quite_  that loudly. 

She didn’t mind the noise though. While she’d had insomnia-related problems since she was a teenager, once she was asleep, she was generally out pretty hard, and nothing short of an emergency alert could wake her up. The snoring was a non-issue, and some part of her even found it pleasant at this point. It meant that she wasn’t alone, that there was another warm body in the room. It was a comforting sound in a weird way. 

Flipping onto to stomach and propping her body up with her elbows,  she gave herself permission to take a minute and just admire him. She smiled quietly to herself when she realized that most people probably wouldn’t look at him as he was now, sprawled on his back and sounding like a small freight train, and think fond thoughts. Actually, scale this whole thing back a little under a year and she probably would have been rolling her eyes too. Not to mention, she would have definitely been wondering what the hell he was doing her her bed. But right now, she kind of wanted to just reach over and... do  _something_. Most sections of her brain were lighting up at the ‘ _kiss_ ’ option, which was always appealing. 

(The part of her that remained a shithead even at this point in her relationship was leaning more towards the ‘ _wake him up via smothering_ ’ or the ever-popular ‘ _stick your finger down his throat because you know he hates it and then laugh about it_ ’.)

Luckily for him, she ended up overcome by a still-foreign rush of affection, leaning over to press slightly chapped lips near the scar tissue on his cheek. It still made her stomach twist a little if she looked at it too hard, the physical memory of fighting down her reflex to put a hole in Akksul’s head as he pulled the trigger visceral in her head. She remembered the soaring relief she felt when the shot mostly missed, the way her shoulders dropped and the tension flowed out of her limbs. She’d still gladly fight him if given the chance, but at least now she wouldn’t be so inclined to snap his neck on sight. Biotic accidents were still a possibility, after all. Jaal thanked her after, tentatively pulling her in close because they still weren’t sure what  _they_  were yet, and her warning of  _“Don’t pull that shit again without telling me”_ actually meaning “ _I really care about you and worry about you, and watching someone threaten your life with you telling me not to do anything to stop it was really fucking scary, and I don’t think I could handle it if I watched something happen to you and didn’t do anything to prevent it even if it was at your request so please just don’t put me through that ever again, I’ve lost almost everything in a short time and I can’t add you to that list ._ ” 

She wasn’t so articulate at the time, and maybe not even now, but she remembered pulling on him a little harder than necessary in the aftermath and not particularly caring if the neediness was picked up on. Maybe she’d secretly hoped it was. 

And she understood too, when the after the first time he’d watch SAM stop her heart, the frantic tone in his voice when they were alone later. It was almost a scolding, if she remembered correctly, and she could tell from the way he gripped her shoulders that he expected her to fight him on it. But she couldn’t, not when she knew enough to recognize that it wasn’t anger but a primal fear. And she couldn’t even promise it wouldn’t happen again, because who knew what fighting the Archon would bring for her? And she was no idiot, before she was the Pathfinder she’d been a soldier and a damn good one. She knew enough to recognize when she was marching into impossible odds. 

She apologized with her body that night instead, each touch a reassuring gesture, each kiss saying  _I am here, I am with you, I am safe right now_. It would have to be enough. 

She felt the scar with her lips once more. Funny how such a small wound could lead her spiralling into grim territory like that. 

The snoring stopped abruptly. A groggy, rumbling voice from below her hit her ears. 

“Darling one,” he mumbled, still obviously coming out from a deep sleep. “Cat. You’ve been awake this whole time?” 

She drew back to her place on the bed, still on her stomach, arms folded under the pillow. “Yeah, sorry,” she sighed. “Didn’t mean to wake you up.” She found herself smiling fondly at him once more. “Just wanted to be near you for a bit. Go back to sleep.” 

“Is that all?” Abruptly, he reached out for her, pulling her body close to his and causing her to squeak in surprise. “You’re allowed to do that, you know.” 

She squirmed about, twisting until she found a comfortable position. It helped, she supposed, that she was comparatively tiny. “I know,” she laughed, “I just didn’t want to disturb you.” 

“Hm. Mission failed, in that case.” He paused for a moment, looking somewhere past the top of her head. “I always thought you’d have more of an issue with the snoring.”

“If it’s any consolation I did consider smothering you a bit, briefly.”

“Only briefly?” He laughed, kissing her somewhere in her nest of black hair. “What saved me?”

“Mmph, too cute to die,” she said, nestling closer. 

In the quiet, she focused on the sound of his breathing, the gradual slowing and relaxing. She felt him go to speak before she heard it.

“What were you really thinking about?” He asked softly. 

She exhaled, somewhat harder than necessary because once more he saw directly through her and it still baffled her how transparent she seemed to become around him. Baffled, and frustrated. She was supposed to be stronger than that. 

“Akksul. That day. You know. The Archon. That  _other_  day. Fun things like that.” She laughed ruefully. “Late night thoughts with Cat Ryder.”

“It still bothers you, even after I walked away from that?” 

Her brow furrowed, and she tensed her arms around him. “It was  _scary_ , Jaal, ok? It was scary and hard to watch and I just think that  _what if_ \--” She sucked in a deep, shuddering breath, and he waited. “I know you had a plan. But I did too, and things happen and I guess. I don’t know. It’s pretty much seared into my retinas now.”

“Not unlike watching your body hit the floor.” He reminded her gently, though she could hear the wavering in his words. “I doubt that is something I’ll ever get out of my head. Or not worry about.”

“Somehow makes the risk seem a lot more real, doesn’t it?” She laughed unsteadily. “Not that we didn’t know, but it’s different. Seeing it like that.”

“It’s seemed ‘real’ to me for quite some time,” he said pointedly, though not unkindly. “But I know what you mean. It was...” 

“Personal?” She offered. 

“Something like that,” he nodded. “Whatever it was, I wasn’t a fan.” 

She laughed a little, still unsure, but he let her wriggle even closer, winding their legs together. 

“I know it’s not fair to ask this, with everything we’re dealing with” she whispered, “But like, if it’s possible, just... try not to leave me? You don’t even have to promise you’ll stay, but just... I don’t know. Try not to let anything  _bad_  happen to yourself.”

Tilting her face towards his, he took a beat to really look at her. Every feature, every colour, and the more his eyes searched the more she felt the warmth spread from her chest. It wasn’t a cold gaze. Scrutinizing, yes, but more in the way one would look for truth in chaos. 

“I can do that,” he breathed, pushing falling strands of hair from her face. “If you can do the same for me.” 

“Yeah.” It came out in a tiny voice, but still, the conviction was there. “Yeah, okay. I can do that.”

“Then,” he said, leaning forward, “so can I.” 

The kiss was slow but forceful, with the weight of a thousand words and emotions behind it. It almost hurt her to finally draw back for air, but it was okay, really. There would be time for more kisses like that in the future, and hundreds of different ones as well. 

“Now, go to sleep,” he said lowly, eyes closed and touching his forehead to hers. “The galaxy will demand more of us tomorrow, so rest now. We can worry later, when there’s time for it.” 

Her lips twitched into a relaxed smile. Maybe she’d get to sleep tonight, maybe not. It was alright. She could spend hours content like this.

“I can do that for you.” 


End file.
